Outside sources are often requirement for your
papers and projects. The library can help you
locate books, articles and other materials to meet your needs that is only the first step. Once
you've located them you have to use this
sources responsibly. The main component to this is citing the
sources correctly. This tutorial help you
understand the purpose of citation and how to create one for a bibliography or works cited
page.
Each discipline has its own style guide so you need to be aware of which one you professor
requires Some of the most popular are APA,
MLA, and Chicago. Though styles vary their purpose remains the
same. Citations provide an important service
by giving the reader enough information to access the original source of information.
To do this citations require a basic group of
information that includes author, title, publishers page numbers, etc.
You should be able to find all these pieces within
the document itself. With print sources this information is located in
the front of the book or journal.
With electronic sources like articles from a library database, each article should have a
record that contains all the necessary
information. To transform these pieces of information into a
citation, you need to consult the appropriate
style guide. The library has copies of each guide available for use. You also may want to use one
of the many citation management or generator
tools that are available Examples of these include Zotero, End Note, or
KnightCite. One word of caution though in using
these citation tools, always validate the citation before handing
in your paper.
Glitches and uncommon formatting can cause these generators some trouble.
Some databases also generate citations for an
article, but the same warnings apply to these as well.
Citing sources can be tricky and this tutorial just
touches the tip of the iceberg. Don't forget to ask your instructor any questions
or check with the writing center or library
research guides for more information.